Janice Johnson - In Hope's Shadow

“I don’t know about that,” he murmured. “I think red is your color.”

Red was undeniably her color. With her dusky skin and black hair, she’d look ridiculous in petal pink or lilac. Admitting as much hadn’t come easily. Like most little girls, she’d wanted everything pink. Which she’d been denied. Because Hope had loved pink, Eve had always believed. Her bedroom, the first she’d ever had all to herself, couldn’t be painted pink, because that’s what color Hope’s was. The room with the closed door, the one kept exactly as it had been the day she disappeared. A shrine.

To this day, Eve didn’t know whether her adoptive mother had steered her to buy clothes in other colors because only Hope was supposed to be able to wear pretty pink and purple, or because Eve really did look better in crimson and orange and yield-sign yellow. She’d seen distress on her mother’s face and quit asking for the forbidden colors.

Mostly, she’d gotten over the desire to be blonde and blue-eyed, too, so she fit in her new family instead of being so obviously adopted.

“Hey.” A couple of faint lines had appeared on Ben’s forehead and she wondered how much he’d seen on her face. Not much, she hoped, unsure why his comment—maybe a compliment?—had sent her back in time. He laid a hand on the small of her back and gave her a gentle nudge toward the living room. With a glance down, she saw that he’d once again taken his daughter’s hand with his free one.

She felt a small burst of pleasure at being part of the threesome, almost as if they were together, before her practical self squelched it. She’d just met these two, and was pretty obviously not Rachel’s mother. Who might simply be tied up tonight, although Eve’s surreptitious glance failed to find a wedding ring on Ben Kemper’s finger.

Seated, neither of her parents seemed to have touched their glasses of wine, set on coasters on the coffee table. Both beamed upon seeing her. Her mother bounced to her feet and hugged her.

“Oh, this is so wonderful! All of us together! And Ben, too.” She turned her happy smile on his daughter. “You must be Rachel. I’m so glad you could come. My, your hair looks pretty like that.”

“Mommy did it.” She cast a glance upward at her father. “Daddy can’t. He says his fingers are too big.”

Ben’s face went particularly blank. Apparently she wasn’t the only one to notice, though, because before Eve could think what to say to counteract what must feel like disparagement, Eve’s father smiled at the little girl.

“I have two daughters, and I never learned to do fancy hairdos, either. Your daddy is right. His fingers probably are too thick.” He waggled his own for her to see. Kirk Lawson’s hands were not only shaped like a block, but oil tended to be embedded deep in any cracks. He owned an auto body shop.

Rachel leaned trustingly against her father. “That’s okay. I like to wear my hair in a ponytail, too, and he can do that.”

Seth, solidly built and brown-haired, appeared from the kitchen. “Hey, glad you could all make it. Rachel, nice to see you. I hear you’re going sledding tomorrow.”

She bounced. “Uh-huh. Daddy says so.”

“That’ll be fun.”

Lucky girl, Eve couldn’t help thinking. She hadn’t had a daddy to do things like that with her until the Lawsons adopted her at nine years old. It had been a long time before she’d been comfortable with her new father, who seemed an alien creature to her. He was such a quiet man, he’d been hard for her to read. Patient, too, though. In a way, she had more faith now in his love than she did in her adoptive mother’s. Karen might not have mourned any more deeply than her husband did for their lost daughter, but unlike him she’d never even tried to hide the ever-present grief. Since Hope’s reappearance, the change in her had been stunning, making Eve doubt how adequately she’d filled the vacuum in that house—or her mother’s heart. In contrast, Kirk’s smiles for his real daughter didn’t seem so different from the ones he gave Eve.

“The daughter we chose,” he had told her last summer, after both their parents had overheard her saying things she shouldn’t have to Bailey.

Before she knew it, she was seated in a rocker and had a glass of red wine in her hand. Ben Kemper sat on a rolling ottoman only a few feet away. Eve’s mother had taken Rachel to the bathroom, and Seth and Bailey were both working on dinner, having turned down all offers to help.

Ben and her father discussed sports briefly, neither sounding all that interested. Then he looked at her. “Seth says you’re a social worker.”

“That’s right. I’m with the Department of Social and Health Services. I supervise kids who are wards of the court.”

He nodded; as a police officer, he’d interacted with social workers on a regular basis. It was probably a surprise they’d never met before. He asked some questions that demonstrated how knowledgeable he was. Eve admitted to occasionally feeling like a hamster trapped on her wheel.

“I run and run and run.” She made a face. “My greatest fear is letting a kid slip off my radar. I’ve heard enough horror stories of what can happen.”

Ben nodded. “I used to worry that I’d missed something when I was trying to decide whether to make an arrest on domestic violence calls. She says she’s fine, she whacked herself in the face when she slipped on the ice going out to her car, yes, she and her husband were arguing but of course he’d never hit her. I leave and think, what if she’s scared to death of him? What if he kills her next time, because I was credulous enough to buy this story she tells me with him standing a few feet away listening?” He shook his head. “But what can you do?”

“Never enough,” she said. “I tell myself I’m human and I will make mistakes, but—”

His crooked grin told her he understood. “But it’s an excuse, and it doesn’t cut it.”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “As it is, I get frustrated because of the limitations on what I can do at my best. Foster homes have to meet a minimum standard, but is that good enough? The people are feeding a girl, keeping her safe, but do they listen to her read? Pay attention to whether she’s doing her homework? Do they even know how to encourage her to excel academically? Often not. The rate of high school graduation for foster kids lags well behind that of kids living with their own parents. Never mind college attendance! And then there are the extras that are often beyond these kids—dance lessons, the rent on a musical instrument, the cost of a prom dress, clothes or things like iPods that let them fit in, the fee required for college applications. Do they ever get to museums? See art house films or documentaries versus the latest blow-’em-up multiplex hit? These kids deserve everything other children take for granted.” Almost hoarse with her passion by the time she finished, she grimaced an apology. “Sorry. I get carried away.”

His blue eyes were unexpectedly warm. She was also aware for the first time that those eyes were shadowed in a way she saw sometimes in her kids—and in her own mirror.

“Don’t apologize. You’re right. I see situations on the job where I wish I could do more, too, and can’t. But what’s the answer?”

She’d had ideas lately, but didn’t have an opportunity to share them. Her mother and Rachel returned, and then they were all called to the dinner table, where conversation was general. Her parents were excited about going to California to see Bailey graduate from USC. Bailey had been plagued again recently by a persistent journalist who wanted to write a follow-up article about her. Seth was clearly pissed about it; probably it didn’t sit well with him that he wouldn’t be there to protect her. To lighten the atmosphere, Eve told a few funny stories from her job, and Ben did the same. Rachel got brave enough to tell them about her kindergarten teacher and this boy in her class who was so wild, he liked to climb up on the table and dance and sometimes he’d start to take his clothes off. Ben cringed at hearing that one. He said something in passing that told her he was divorced. This was obviously his weekend with his daughter.